Observations on certain eruptions of the skin which occur after recent operations and injuries : a thesis for the degree of M.D. in the University of Cambridge / by Edward C. Stirling.

  • Stirling, Edward Charles, 1848-1919.
Date:
1880
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on certain eruptions of the skin which occur after recent operations and injuries : a thesis for the degree of M.D. in the University of Cambridge / by Edward C. Stirling. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    much more convincing and reliable symptom. In another case the rigors and high temperature, together with the rash, suggest very strongly the true nature of the disease, though they do not by any means absolutely prove it. Here I might say that it is, in a measure, sufficient for my purpose to have demonstrated the existence of a rash; for though I am at present endeavouring to prove a scar- latinal origin for many of the cases in point, yet it will be borne in mind that I wish later to show that they are not all of that nature. It would therefore be right for me, in considering the latter class of cases, to avail myself of those to which exception is here taken. M. Trelat* relates two cases that came under his own observation, and another in the practice of one of his pupils. A child, after slow convalescence from measles, had an abscess in the thigh, partly subaponeurotic, partly sub- cutaneous, which was considered to be due to an affection of the bone. This was emptied by means of a drainage- tube, which was removed at the end of fifteen days. One orifice healed, the other remained open. At the end of three weeks compression was exerted, but a fistulous track remained. M. Trelat therefore laid open the sinus with a pair of scissors. On the following day there was a sharp attack of fever, sore-throat, and, in less than twenty-four hours, a general scarlatiniform eruption, which was diagnosed by his colleague, M. Hardy, as scarlet fever. Desquamation occurred; but the termination of the disease, in this respect and in others, presented cer- tain irregularities. In the second case, a young man, of a profoundly lym- phatic temperament, had, besides superficial scrofulous ulcerations on the hands and buttocks, an abscess in the epididymis, probably of scrofulous origin, and also a cold abscess above the pubes. The small abscess in the epididymis was opened, and the contents of the cold abscess evacuated with an aspira- tor. Next morning the patient became markedly feverish, depressed, and fatigued, and vomited whatever he took, * Loc. cit.